


Five times Mary Winchester tried to wrap her head around Castiel, Angel of the Lord, and one time she didn’t

by karoffelbrei89



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, POV Outsider, Season/Series 12, Season/Series 12 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8023084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karoffelbrei89/pseuds/karoffelbrei89
Summary: Mary tries to understand. Tries to get her head around it. But Castiel isn’t people. He is a hurricane trapped inside a body. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t look at her son the way he does. Mary can’t help but wonder why he does anyway.





	Five times Mary Winchester tried to wrap her head around Castiel, Angel of the Lord, and one time she didn’t

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something I wrote in anticipation for season 12. I'm really curious to know how Mary will react to Castiel, and I always wanted to write a Destiel story from an Outsider POV. So, have fun reading and leave some comments when you can =)
> 
> Also on [tumblr](http://nerdylittleshit.tumblr.com/post/150324663157/fandom-supernatural-pairing-deancas-words-2512)

1.

The first time she hears his name, they are sitting in the car. The car that has been hers, or more specifically theirs, Mary and John’s. She had never liked it in the first place. But right now, after everything this day had to offer, her head swimming with all the new information, the car offers her comfort. It seems like it is the only thing left from her old life.

The man sitting next to her, _her son_ , is starring at something that supposedly is meant to be a telephone. He told her enough about her, about them, that she is willing to believe him. For now. Still, it is hard to wrap her head around the fact that this is the sweet boy she used to bring to bed, in what feels like yesterday. She knows the kind of man he has become; she has seen plenty of them in her parent’s house. Worn down men, grunts, hardened by their lives and the choices they had to make. They had all carried the same expression: someone who had seen too much. It was the reason why she wanted so desperately to escape this kind of life. 

“Come on Cas, pick up your damn phone.”

Mary turns around and for the first time she actually looks at Dean. There is nothing soft about him. She quickly turns away.

“Who is Cas?”

Dean looks at her, confusion written all over his face, as if he hasn’t found the answer to that question yet. He hesitates a moment before he answers her.

“It’s a long story. But he is… uhm… he is good people. He is family.”

He leaves it at that and for the next ten minutes they drive in complete silence. There is nothing more to say. Then all of sudden Dean talks again, but instead of Mary he looks at the road, talking to nobody but himself. He’s got insane, she thinks. He wouldn’t be the first hunter.

“What was that?”

“A prayer.”

“I didn’t take you for the religious kind of type.”

He opens his mouth, then shuts it again. Thinks for a moment, before he answers, carefully choosing his words.

“I’m not. But there is something you should know about Cas. Remember how you used to tell me angels are watching over me?”

She nods. It was more of a sentiment than actual faith. But here she is, resurrected from the dead, with her adult son telling her about angels, about God, about the apocalypse. She still isn’t sure if he is insane or not, or maybe the both of them. But when he tells her about Cas, Castiel, it is the first time she sees him smile. He almost looks like her son again. It’s good enough.

 

2.

He looks different then she expected. Then again she had never thought about how an actual angel might look like. Still, it wasn’t like this. A man in his thirties, wearing a trench-coat and an ill-fitting suit, his tousled hair matching his five o’clock shadow. He looks tired, with the same haunting look in his eyes she has seen with her son. 

Dean is out of the car before she can say something. They are in front of something he has called ‘the bunker’. Apparently they live here. She watches as the two men walk in huge steps towards each other, before they embrace. There is some sort of a soft smile on the angel’s face. She can’t see her son’s expression, but she imagines it to be as equally tender. They stay like this for a moment, the way people do when there is no need to say something, when being around each other is enough. But then the angel, Castiel, talks again. All of sudden he looks incredible tired again, as if the weight of the world is dragging him down. 

Mary gets out of the car. She can hear a few glimpses of their conversation, hears her other son’s name mentioned again and again, before they both stop talking. The angel is starring at her, his expression unreadable.

“Ugh Cas, this is… “

“I know who she is. But how?”

His voice doesn’t sound like she thought it would. It is much deeper, as if it doesn’t really belong to him. She tries to remember what Dean told her about vessels. 

Dean only shrugs before he answers Castiel’s question.

“Parting gift from Amara.”

They both turn to look at her. She can see how Castiel is trying to make sense of the situation, tries to make sense of her. She wonders what her sons have told him about her.

It’s Dean who breaks the silence. He casts a nervous glance at her, in a way he hasn’t before.

“Uhm… Cas, you think you could… you know… check on her. See if she came back a hundred percent.”

It’s the polite way to say ‘Please make sure my mother didn’t come back as a zombie or worse’. Mary gets it. She used to be a hunter. It’s hard to get rid of a live long paranoia.  
Still, she wonders why he asks now. If she wanted to hurt him she had plenty of opportunities before. It’s like he had forget to check caused by the relief of having her back. It is either that or he is a way better actor than she gives him credit for.

It doesn’t change the fact she still doesn’t trust this Dean, or the angel. Especially not the angel. She takes a step back, only to find the car right behind her, when he walks towards her. 

Dean must have sensed her discomfort.

“It’s okay mom. You can trust him.”

She takes a deep breath before she reaches out her hand. All her instincts tell her to run away, or to at least attack the guy, though she doubts it would be of any use. The man – the creature – in front of her slowly takes her hand. In the dark his eyes almost look black. 

“This is going to feel a little bit cold.”

She wants to ask what exactly he is going to do, but then his eyes flash in a cold blue, and it feels like the same light rushes through her whole body. It feels like drowning in ice cold water. It is over before she can start to panic.

“What was that?”

“My grace.”

It still doesn’t explain a single thing.

“He just healed you”, Dean says. “Every old scar, every broken bone they didn’t have to time to grow properly together, all of it, it is gone.”

He smiles at her like this a good thing. She wants to tell him that this is not how the world works, that nobody should have this amount of power. It terrifies her deep down to her bones. And yet her son rests one of his hands on the angel’s shoulder, smiling at him, the way old friends do.

She doesn’t know how he can stand the cold.

 

3.

They spent the next three weeks searching for Sam. Mary doesn’t understand much about it, neither about the so called ‘Men of Letters’ or why they would capture her son. For the most part Mary stays in the back. She wants to help, but she can’t. Too much has changed, both in the real world as in the supernatural world. She used to think she knows her fair bit about monsters, but then she still has to figure out how to use the new phones. Dean had explained it to her, several times, his voice calm and steady. He doesn’t seem to mind. She has a million questions to ask, about everything she missed in the last thirty-three years. She doesn’t. Not as long as Sam isn’t safe and she knows Dean’s focus is elsewhere. Castiel had tried to explain the internet to her. She still hasn’t wrapped her head around that, both the angel and the thing everyone relies on these days. It is like all the knowledge of the world is crammed into one machine. But so is Cas. It is frightening and overwhelming.

So she watches instead, observes. There is a lot to learn even if you don’t ask questions all the time. She wants to get know her son. They talk, whenever they have time. She still tries to find a connection between the child she used to know and the man he has become. She asks about Sam. She asks about John. He is the one she misses the most. And yet, when Dean talks about him, he doesn’t resemble the man she married. The man she loved was anything but a hunter.

She tries to get used to Castiel. Tries to ignore the uneasy feeling whenever he is around. She watches the way her son acts around him. They fight almost daily, throwing accusations at each other. They have a lot of history. And yet, as quick as there are willing to yell at each other they are able to forgive and forget. They fight the same way her parents did. The way it is necessary for two people who are fundamental different, but still care deeply about each other. There is a bond between them, and Mary wonders if either of them is aware of it.

She only knows the few things Dean has told her about Castiel. How he rescued her son from hell. How he died for him (several times). How they bleed for each other. How they became family. 

Mary tries to understand. Tries to get her head around it. But Castiel isn’t people. He is a hurricane trapped inside a body. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t look at her son the way he does. Mary can’t help but wonder why he does anyway.

 

4\. 

When they find Sam he is in a horrible state. Mary doesn’t ask what has happened to him. It wouldn’t change a thing. Then Cas rests a hand on his shoulder, the blue light surrounding both of them, before Sam stands up, his legs still shaky, but all of his wounds gone. They hug. They are family. When Sam finally sees her, when he is told that she is real, that she is back for good, he has tears in his eyes. 

They drive back to the bunker, the four of them. Cas leaves the next day. Dean tries to smile his way through their goodbye, but Mary can see that he is hurt. She wonders if Castiel can see it as well, and how it doesn’t really change anything about his departure.

Things are easier with Sam than they are with Dean. Sam, for the most part, is a blank space to her. She doesn’t know anything about him, apart from the few things Dean has told her. He was an infant when she died. He remembers as much about her than she does about him. There are no expectations, no judgement, no disappointments. He has some struggle calling her ‘mom’, so she offers him to call her ‘Mary’ instead. He politely declines, says he has to get used to it. He does it for Dean’s sake, not hers.

Castiel returns eventually. The atmosphere is different whenever he is around. She has seen the way her sons act around each other, and the way they do with Castiel. She has seen the way Sam is around Castiel. They are friends, they are family. But they are not whatever Dean and Castiel are. Castiel, for a better lack of words, belongs to Dean. They share something neither Sam or Mary are part of. They still fight, and yet they carefully try not to hurt each other. It is Dean who is the first one to complain about Cas, but then he is also the first one to defend him. 

She hopes to find some answers with Sam, but he just shakes his head before he says, “That’s just the way they are. You get used to it.”

 

5.

There is no good way to bring up the topic, so one day after dinner she just asks. 

“You want to know what?”

Mary just smiles, trying to ignore the slight panic in Dean’s voice. 

“It’s just you never mentioned anyone. I’m just curios if there ever was someone for some time in your lives.”

She knows that asking her adult sons about their love life is nothing but awkward, for the three of them. But if there is anything she knows then how lonely the life as a hunter can get. It’s been six months now since she is back and the only one who is constantly present in her son’s life is Castiel. 

They both mention a couple of names. They both seem deeply uncomfortable doing so.

“You know how it is”, Dean says. “Life as a hunter doesn’t exactly match with the apple pie life. Never heard of a hunter who could make it work.”

“There are Cesar and Jesse”, Sam throws in.

“Who?”

“They are… they are hunters”, Dean answers, carefully looking at anyone but Mary. “They are married.”

“Oh.”

Mary thinks she can see where Dean’s discomfort comes from. She knows it is widely accepted in 2016 for two men to be together, to get married. It is something she hasn’t been thinking about a lot back in 1983. It hadn’t been an issue back then. But it is now, and more so, it is for Dean. She can tell, for the way he looks at her whenever two men kiss on television, whenever the subject is brought up in one way or another. They never really talked about it.

But then Cas and Dean went out on a hunt, just the two of them, while Sam and Mary stayed behind. She could tell that something had changed between them. They seem to be even closer than before, always around each other, casually touching. It was like everyone knew what was going on, but yet nobody talked about it.

And it wasn’t until now that Mary realized that Dean had been afraid of her reaction. 

“Well, as long as they are happy, I don’t see why there should be a problem with that.”

She looks straight at Dean, trying to make him understand. He simply nods, wearing the small smile on his lips he usually reserves for Castiel.

 

\+ 1

They never have the whole ‘this is my boyfriend’-talk. Mary still doesn’t understand Castiel. She still doesn’t understand what exactly they have with each other. But they are both genuinely happy, and so is she. There are some questions that don’t need answers. She can see this now. Their family will always be different. They can’t go back to the way things were, and they shouldn’t. They can still be happy. And Castiel, Angel of the Lord, is part of that equation. They are family, after all.


End file.
